Die Hölle der Südsee

Once more in the 'Golden Age' of Hollywood a major studio, Paramount, ventures forth into the South Seas. These films follow pretty much the same formula. A exotic tropical island, the adversary, in this case Pirates, romance and finally the concluding disaster. Where the attractive couple always survive and true love is fulfilled.

TYPHOON (1940) follows this formula with a few interesting variations. Pearls are the objective and to help get them Skipper Joe (Lynne Overman) has a pre-WWI Submarine at his disposal. He is assisted by shanghaied Johnny Potter (Robert Preston). They are pursued by Pirate Kehi (Chief Thundercloud) and threatened by mutinous Mekaike (J. Carroll Naish). Who manages to lose the Submarine, forgetting that you have to close the hatches before diving the boat.

All is not lost though, on their island is Dea (Dorothy Lamour) back in the Sarong again! Rehabilitating the perpetual drunk Johnny with the help of her Chimpanse companion and finding romance. The Pirates make a reappearance, but fortunately are dispatched by the TYPHOON arriving in the nick of time to wrap up the film. In a brisk seventy (70) minutes.

Lamour had first donned the Sarong in THE HURRICANE (1937) the best of these epics, Directed by John Ford. Lamour is always good to look at even in material like this. She was capable of more as in JOHNNY APOLLO (1940) and looked just as good in contemporary fashions. Filmed in TechniColor the ending disaster benefited from Paramounts SFX Wizard Gordon Jennings. Though lasting only about five (5) minutes it is impressive, though not the equal of THE HURRICANE. This is a light entertainment and should be enjoyed as such.

There is some kind of story behind Typhoon or at least the making of this film. Academy Award nominations for Special Effects are not given out to films that only run slightly over 70 minutes. I have a feeling that this film was a lot more ambitious undertaking than what eventually arrived on the screen.

There is a 10 minute prologue where young Norma Gene Nelson is cast adrift in a raging sea as her father Paul Harvey and first mate Jack Carson go down with his trading schooner in the South Seas. The young girl has seen the effects that alcoholism has done to her family as she drifts toward what she hopes is survival.

Fast forward several years and Lynne Overman kind of shanghais an alcoholic Robert Preston who was cashiered from the Navy and now lives hand to mouth in those South Seas. Overman knows where there's a bed of oysters who give off with pearls as we know and he's thinking of striking it rich. But the native crew he has needs someone else to keep them in line. One of them J. Carrol Naish is a real sneaky one with his own agenda.

In addition Overman got one of the native chiefs against him when he picked a fight in the saloon where Preston is drinking for the purpose of getting Preston into the battle. It works only too well.

Overman has a surplus submarine from World War I and he's forced to put in on a deserted island. Not quite deserted because Dorothy Lamour is the grownup version of Norma Gene Nelson. She's grown up like Brooke Shields on the island without Christopher Atkins. Preston got separated from the rest and she finds him. Let's say no one's explained the facts of life to Dottie, but the girl has instincts.

Overman, Preston, and Lamour and her pet chimpanzee have to face mutiny, a forest fire, and finally a Typhoon before this film is over. Quite a lot packed into a 72 minute running time.

What's left a really silly film with state of the art special effects for their time. That does not compute so I know Paramount had much bigger plans for this film when it started out on the drawing board. It ends up really as a B picture.

But Dottie in a sarong singing South Sea island songs from Tin Pan Alley is what the movie-going public wanted.